War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [266]
In Rostov, as in the whole army from which he came, that change in relations with Napoleon and the French, turning them from enemies into friends, was still far from being accomplished as it had been at headquarters and in Boris. In the army they still went on experiencing a mixed feeling of anger, contempt, and fear for Bonaparte and the French. Still recently Rostov, talking with one of Platov’s Cossack officers, had argued that if Napoleon were ever taken prisoner, he would be treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Still recently, meeting a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostov had become heated, proving to him that there could be no peace between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Therefore Rostov was oddly struck in Boris’s apartment by the sight of French officers in those same uniforms which he was used to looking at quite differently from the flank line. As soon as he saw a French officer thrust himself out of the door, that warlike, hostile feeling which he always experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly took hold of him. He stopped on the threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskoy lived there. Boris, hearing a stranger’s voice in the front hall, came out to meet him. His face, when he recognized Rostov, at first expressed annoyance.
“Ah, it’s you, very glad, very glad to see you,” he said anyhow, smiling and going up to him. But Rostov had noticed his first reaction.
“It seems I chose the wrong time,” he said. “I wouldn’t have come, but I’m on business,” he said coldly…
“No, I was only surprised that you’ve left the regiment. Dans un moment je suis à vous,”*329 he replied to a voice that was calling him.
“I can see it’s the wrong time,” Rostov repeated.
The expression of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris’s face; evidently having reflected and decided what to do, he took him by both hands with a particular calm and led him to the neighboring room. Boris’s eyes, looking calmly and firmly at Rostov, were as if veiled by something, as if some sort of screen—the blue spectacles of convention—had been put on them. So it seemed to Rostov.
“Ah, enough, please, as if you could come at the wrong time,” said Boris. He led him into the room, where the supper table had been laid, introduced him to his guests, giving his name and explaining that he was not a civilian, but a hussar officer and his old friend. “Count Zhilinsky, le comte N. N., le capitaine S. S.,” he named his guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, made his bows reluctantly, and said nothing.
Zhilinsky clearly took this new Russian person into his circle without any joy and said nothing to Rostov. Boris seemed not to notice the constraint caused by the appearance of a new person and, with the same agreeable calm and veiling of the eyes with which he had met Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen turned with habitual French politeness to the stubbornly silent Rostov and said to him that he had probably come to Tilsit to see the emperor.
“No, I’m on business,” Rostov answered curtly.
Rostov felt ill-humored immediately after he noticed the displeasure on Boris’s face, and, as always happens with people who are ill-humored, it seemed to him that everyone was looking at him hostilely and that he was hampering them all. And indeed he was hampering them all and alone remained outside the newly initiated general conversation. “Why is he sitting here?” said the glances cast at him by the guests. He got up and went over to Boris.
“Anyhow I’m in your way,” he said softly to him. “Let’s go and talk business, and I’ll leave.”
“Why no, not in the least,” said Boris. “But if you’re tired, let’s go to my room, and you can lie down to rest.”
“Yes, in fact…”
They went into the small room where Boris slept. Rostov, not sitting down, at once, with irritation—as if Boris was guilty before him for something—began telling him about Denisov’s case, asking